Busan’s Buk-gu Urban Revitalization Project: Gupo Beer Season 2 “Nol:Gupo” Brand Design College of Design, Dongseo University DSU-DESIS Lab, Busan, Korea Urban Regeneration Brand Design Team 2
City Revitalization Brand Design Team No. 2 DSU LINC+ “Class Selling,”
Promoter. Buk-gu District, Busan
Funders.
Aknowledgements.
Jeong Myeong-hee, Buk-gu Office Chief
Buk-gu, Busan, Galmegi Brewing, Dongseo University design department, Dongseo LINC+ Project Team
Context Buk-gu was formerly the center of Busan’s eastern section, with ample transportation infrastructure including Gupo Port, and it has barely maintained its status as the center of the old town. To overcome this stasis, Buk-gu began its city revitalization project in 2018, with the theme of creating local brands led by local business owners, as well as tourism and cultural content in the old district center becoming a main focus.
The project
Gupo Beer Season 2 is Busan’s first local culture brand, whose design is under development by local organizations.
Design process Inspiration from Observation Analysis of landscape and sunset characteristics, visits to brewery, expert seminars.
Research and Benchmarking Researching Buk-gu’s ecology, history, and culture, analysis and benchmarking of craft beer design, interviews with local residents.
Creative Design Process Dongseo University's design school features its unique "design thinking" and group creative process, creating a brand mind-map.
Ideation Brand design and marketing positioning strategy creation, brand storytelling design, brand signature, can labels, posters, coasters, and pint glasses design development.
Presentation and Feedback Presentation of prototypes and soliciting feedback.
Brand Launch Gupo Beer Season 2 “Nol:Gupo” launch event.
Governance and Policy Making Collaborative project including government officials, local businesses, residents, and universities : Planning by Busan's local government combined with creative ideas of universities led to real local cultural content. Design that tells a story of the ecological assets in the old downtown in a modernretro style, distinct from any other districts in Busan.
Activism and Civic Participation
Inspired by the local community’s environment, the students who took part in the project class came up with a marketing positioning scenario by working closely with local residents. By doing so, they could launch a storytelling-like brand design with a theme of “sunset,” as a result of the collective creative process. At the end of the class, the students reported in a survey that they felt pride in the fact that they were able to grow personally as local culture creators.
Social Interactions and Relations X
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In July 2020, Dongseo University and the Buk-gu District collaborated for 3 and a half years on the “Buk-gu Modern-Retro Future City Connecting Culture Project.” This project was part of the district’s city revitalization project, in which Dongseo students combined cultural content planning, design, and development with experts to successfully revitalize the city following the “New Deal.”
City and Environmental Planning
As part of the “Connecting Culture” project, the success of Gupo Beer Season 2 “Nol:Gupo” has led to plans to continue development of new designs in collaboration with Dongseo University, including future plans to include local residents at village-level business projects.
Production, Distribution and Consumption
“Nol:Gupo” beer is currently being sold at the district-run Mildang Brewery, located at Gupo Plaza. This collaborative brand design project between local residents, the local government, and the university occurred during the COVID-19 situation, thus drawing attention from the nationwide media. Plans are now under way to create a locally owned craft brewery.
Skill Trainingand Design Education
Students in Dongseo University’s LINC+ “Class Selling” course received scholarships from local organizations to take advantage of results from the class for commercial purposes. This class structure is unique to Dongseo University. In the class, students are presented with new problems to solve through observation and understanding the local situation, as well as the private-public-academia collaboration to achieve outcomes.
Job Creation The “Class Selling” course, which is run by the Buk-gu District Office in Busan, is meaningful as it fosters creative design talent who have studied the local culture. It offers a good foundation for young local culture designers to enter the field.
Storytelling and Visualisation Buk-gu’s beautiful sunset views, the history and culture of the Nakdong River, and the wheat fields and raspberry farms in the Gupo area have all been included in the storytelling design for the beer. The image of the sun setting behind the mountains, the sparkling Nakdong River, and the bridges across the river helping to bring to light the urban landscape, as well as the boats symbolizing Gupo Port, the texture of the wheat grain, the color of the raspberry beer mixed with the colors of the sunset become the boats and the sunset in themselves. The design is the signature of the “modernretro” trend preferred by young people. The main brand design and cool slogan are used to create a certain perspective and mood.
suehwa@dongseo.ac.kr adcf_dsu@g.dongseo.ac.kr (Asia Design Center for the Future)
College of Design, Dongseo University DSU-DESIS Lab, Busan, Korea Urban Regeneration Brand Design Team 2